Grim Reaper’s visit wasn’t on Halloween

“Mom!” my eight-year old son yelled from his bedroom. I hopped up wondering what apparition he’d seen this time.

Over the past two weeks, Jake had seen eyeballs floating in the air, a hand pressed through the wall by his bed, a demon with horns in his closet, and what he described as an “elf” standing by his desk.

Jake had trouble sleeping since his first frightening sight of a girl who “flew through the wall” while he was taking a bath. “How’d she do that, Mom?” Jake asked, saying that he could see through her, but she had blonde hair on her head. He made a swoop in the air. “She didn’t have feet. She had a tail.”

The description sounded like a mermaid, which made a weird sort of sense because a “water leak” started just days prior to her floating through the bathroom.

For weeks, water had been spraying inside of the house like an invisible water hose, busting light bulbs, triggering the fire alarm and drenching the entire family. Pictures and paintings that usually hung on the walls were tucked under the dining room table which was draped with a plastic tarp.

The windows were fogged up, lending a sinister ambiance to the scene which felt more like a movie set than that of my once cozy home. It wasn’t even Halloween and the myriad of characters my home was attracting was anything but a treat.

The 40-something repairmen who inspected the house from attic to basement couldn’t locate a water leak. Little did we know that a demon was responsible for the mysterious downpours.

One of the contractors placed a device on the wall that measured dampness, shook his head and shot his eyebrows high. “Impossible. It’s reading zero moisture,” he said, swiping his hand over the water running down the wall.

I reach Jake’s room where he’s sitting up, eyes so wide you’d have thought he’d just been given a dirt bike for his birthday. “You just walked through him,” he said pointing to the hallway behind me.

“Walked through who?” I ask, inching closer to his bed and glancing over my shoulder.

“That tall guy outside your door. He was black and looked like that one dude, the Grim Reaper. Mom, I’m not sleeping in here tonight.”

There were many sleepless nights in that house that, for two weeks, rained evil into my life, permitting me to experience a darkness that many only imagine when they watch movies like “The Conjuring.”

A sense of dread ranged from the knocks in the wall behind the dresser where I saw a demon in my mirror to the locked garages where a “dark figure” busted tires on our vehicles.

As surreal and utterly terrifying as that time was for me and my family, I am profoundly grateful to the Almighty whose grace reigns. He delivered us from the evil that was not only soaking us, but threatened to saturate our very souls.